Vodacom has announced the commercial launch of long term evolution (LTE) services in Durban, and Cape Town is expected to follow before year-end.
Vodacom switched on sites in Johannesburg and Pretoria for LTE last month - becoming the first local operator to offer commercial LTE services in the country. LTE has the capability of operating at speeds of up to three times faster than 3G.
"Its higher speeds and lower latency mean a more stable user experience with stutter-free video and almost instantaneous music downloads," says Vodacom.
In Durban, the technology has initially been rolled out to a "small number" of sites predominantly in the Umhlanga area. Vodacom says it plans to have over 60 LTE sites up and running in KwaZulu-Natal by the end of the first quarter of next year.
"In under a month, Vodacom has managed to more than double the number of LTE-enabled base stations on its network. As of today, the company officially has over 400 LTE-enabled base stations live and is ahead of schedule to meet its target of switching on 500 sites by the end of 2012," says Vodacom.
Vodacom's managing executive in KwaZulu-Natal, Alberts Breed, says: "The fact that our engineers have been able to reach over 400 LTE-enabled sites in such a short space of time is no mean feat. Their hard work has meant that today we can be the first operator in SA to provide our customers with a commercial LTE service in Durban."
The LTE service is currently available to Vodacom Contract customers and will be available to Top-up and Prepaid customers in 2013. It also requires customers to use a 64K or 128K SIM card and an LTE-enabled device. Vodacom's coverage map can be viewed here.
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